One of the best films of the year has reached the end, almost in stoppage time. It is an insignificant detail that will not be remembered when let us return again and again to the magnificent ‘Fallen Leaves’ for the rest of our livesbut it can also be considered another magical element that imbues the title with the irresistible melancholy that Aki Kaurismäki’s cinema gives off.
“Kaurismäki’s humanism spreads its wings and, with Chaplin flying over the Finnish skies, the filmmaker offers his melancholic look at these ‘Modern Times’“, explains our review of ‘Fallen Leaves’. “It portrays the love that soothes a working class that never loses its dignity, that refuses to give up even when faced with destiny, the elements and bosses without scruples or empathy.”
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Raw as a shot of vodka, fun as its consequences and bitter as the subsequent hangover, The heart of ‘Fallen Leaves’ is its two charming protagonistsa woman who survives with an abusive contract in a supermarket and a guy whose drinking problem begins to affect his daily life. Ansa y Holappa, interpreted by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanenthey will see how their paths cross at the most necessary fork in their lives: a karaoke.
“I fell madly in love with both characters.“, confesses Pöysti, an actress who had already had a certain impact in 2020 with ‘Tove’ (Zaida Bergroth) and who, this same year, is part of the Netflix film catalog thanks to the Swedish thriller ‘A Day and a Half’ (Fares Fares).
“It’s very easy to fall in love with them, they are very honest and they don’t beat around the bush. You know what they are and they have a good heart,” emphasizes Vatanen, whose career has not left Finland since he began with ‘Lapland Odyssey’ (Dome Karukoski, 2010). “And at the same time, As in all Aki’s films, there is always that element of comedy. Aki writes very beautiful and funny phrases for her characters, surprising phrases. “I think it’s easy to fall in love with characters who say such funny things.”
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Kaurismäki, who made his debut in fiction in 1983 with ‘Crime and Punishment’, He has been demonstrating for four decades that he is a historical authorone of those filmmakers who transcend time and space to become his own genre, one full of truth, with a sleepy tragic undertone and an always comforting comic embrace with which he keeps us hooked to his unusually painterly ordinary settings.
With such essential titles in his filmography as ‘I Hired a Hitman’ (1990), ‘The Bohemian Life’ (1992), ‘Passing Clouds’ (1996), the Oscar nominee ‘A Man Without a Past’ (2002 ) and the applauded ‘El Havre’ (2011), ‘Fallen Leaves’ is part of his well-known “proletarian series”, which includes ‘Shadows in Paradise’ (1986), ‘Ariel’ (1988) and ‘The Girl at the Match Factory’ (1990)..
“He says it’s the lost fourth part of his working class trilogy,” explains Pöysti. “But he never clarifies whether it is a film that is related to those, a continuation, a repetition or a variation.” What is certain is that it maintains the Finn’s pristine view of the need for unity to survive the class struggle and all its putrid tentacles, something that is reflected in one of the most exciting scenes of the film, a segment that reminds us of the essentiality of sisterhood like few contemporary films.
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“Yeah, You could say that it is a feminist film, and also that it is a wonderful portrait of what solidarity is in a very concrete way” continues Pöysti. “When these people are treated badly by their bosses and exploited, they still have power when they stick together. It’s the only power they have. I think it is a very beautiful scene. And yes, I think that in all There are very strong women in Aki’s films and this is no exception.. Ansa is a fantastic woman, strong and independent in her own way. She’s shy but she’s not intimidated at all.”
But to film all this, the performers had to deal with Kaurismäki’s now legendary filming method: if he doesn’t get it right the first time, he won’t be interested in the shot again.
“Yes, everything they say is true,” laughs Vatanen. “At first we were a little scared, the schedule was designed to advance all the time in this way, but when we started filming we realized that There was a lot of intensity and many emotions in that long-awaited first shot.. So you usually got a really good shot.”
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No matter how tense the pressure was at first, the protagonists and the director ended up understanding each other in such a way that, although still without much information, it is already known that they are planning a new film together. “We are dreaming about it. We haven’t started work yet, but we hope it will happen,” says Pöysti. “Aki has said that she wants to make a comedia slapstick and I can speak for both of us, for Jussi and myself, when I say that we would like nothing more than to see this come true.”
“Actually, we don’t know much about it yet, but What Aki just told us is that, in reality, it is a tragedia slapstick” Vatanen clarifies. “I don’t know if anyone has any idea what that means.”
Selected by Finland to represent the country at the 2024 Oscars, it has recently passed the cut that places it among the fifteen finalists to end up being one of the nominees for best foreign-language film.
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“Being on the list of finalists already seems great to me. I’ve seen some of this year’s movies and the truth is that the competition is very toughthere are many good films this year,” says Vatanen about the shortlist that includes some of the best titles of the year, such as the Icelandic ‘Godland’ (Hlynur Palmason), the Italian ‘I Captain’ (Matteo Garrone), the Japanese ‘Perfect Days’ (Wim Wenders), the Ukrainian ’20 Days in Mariupol’ (Mstyslav Chernov), the British ‘The Zone of Interest’ (Jonathan Glazer) and, of course, the Spanish ‘The Snow Society’ (JA Bayona).
“What you realize when you have to travel around the world with the film, from Japan to Mexico, the United States, London, Paris… is that people love the film and that is the important thing,” he emphasizes. Pöysti. “You can’t compete in art. Of course, it’s wonderful to get that kind of recognition. But The most important thing is that it seems to speak to everyone, and that is something unique and surprising“.
“It is a privilege in these times to have the opportunity to represent this film,” says Vatanen. “I think it’s very important in our time.”
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Ricardo Rosado He is a film critic, cultural journalist, expert in American comedy, horror films of any kind and everything that happens between genres and formats. Raised on Steven Spielberg films, and spoiled since he encountered David Lynch, he has been writing for a decade about the art he consumes.
In FOTOGRAMAS you will read him commenting on the latest theatrical releases, promoting peace between Marvel and DC fans, reviewing all the latest Star Wars news or diving into the depths of the Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video and Filmin catalogues. He also likes to make galleries and rankings of movies and series, but no one trusts his judgment too much.
After studying Audiovisual Communication at the Complutense University of Madrid, he created a film review blog hoping to attend free film festivals and press screenings. Now, after seven years writing in FOTOGRAMAS about the latest theatrical releases, current series and any content available on the different streaming channels, he still thinks it was worth it.
Frontman of two embarrassing musical projects, director of various video clips by heavy metal bands from Madrid and author of quite a few short films hidden in the network of networks, he is the editor and one of the proud members of the cultural podcast ‘Those next to Pumares‘, a space that has allowed him to participate as a collaborator in other radio formats such as ‘Eres de cine’ (Castilla-La Mancha Media) and ‘The lighthouse’ (SER Chain)in addition to having made him one of the main voices of the FOTOGRAMAS videos.
2023-12-28 19:24:35
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